Big Brother 20 recap: Lies, tears and more lies ahead of the next eviction

They say the truth will set you free, but on Big Brother, the truth will send you to the jury house. At least, that’s what it looks like for Scottie. The one moment our nerdy little virgin friend is actually loyal is the moment the target on his back grows larger. His and Sam’s wild last-minute throw for safety in last night’s episode has only made things more cloudy with a veto meeting and live eviction to look forward to tonight.

We join a mad and confused Faysal in the HoH room after Sam and Scottie’s madcap meetings. Unconvinced by their overtures, Faysal tells Haleigh about their efforts to have her put up as the replacement nominee, saying they have the votes to get her out. Genuinely hurt by her friend’s backstabbing, she tearfully confesses to the diary room that she feels stupid for going out of her way to keep Scottie around in the game so many times. Haleigh soon joins Angela, Tyler, and Kaycee in the game room, and seems emotionally spent as she tells them how angry she is that Scottie would do that to her. The Level Six-ers nod along and give her support, but Kaycee brags in the diary room about how easy this week is going for her alliance with all this newfound drama on the other side. Haleigh decides she needs to meet with Scottie to figure out exactly what’s going on. When she finds him in his bed, she’s quickly caught off guard as he tells her that she should disassociate herself from him. Scottie admits to everything she’s heard in the house, saying that he’s told the other side that she’s playing him and fesses up to calling her Kaitlyn 2.0. “It’s best for you if I go,” Scottie says, telling the diary room that his and Sam’s idea was “even stupider than I thought.” Haleigh is at once frustrated and confused, telling him that she’s always had his back in the game, even when it meant getting on Fessy’s bad side. Things quickly get tearier than a General Hospital binge-watch between the two friends as their uncertainties grow. When Haleigh says the moments they’ve shared together have been more than just a game for her, Scottie responds by saying those were his favorite moments of this entire summer. If anyone needs me, I’ll be crying in the corner over these two foolish, foolish souls.

Scottie, now realizing his plan to throw Haleigh under the bus is futile, meets with Faysal to take back everything he said. He tells Fessy that he did all this to make his likely eviction less harmful for Haleigh’s game, and then admits that he’s never had feelings for anyone like he has for Haleigh. Yes, he just said that — to Fessy!!! Who knew Scottie’s truths were more far-fetched than his lies? He then makes the pitch to put up Sam as the replacement nominee, as she would easily win the whole game if she made it to the finale (she wouldn’t, but keep going). Fessy says to the diary room that while Scottie is his target, Sam’s increasingly erratic behavior this week is making him wonder if her presence is too risky for his game. He won’t commit to any plan with Scottie but says he’ll sleep on it before the veto meeting.

It’s time for the veto meeting and, whew chile, this is a whole entire mess. Though Brett holds the veto, he gives Scottie the floor to make his case as to why it should be used on him. Instead of making that speech, he decides to throw Sam under the bus, telling Fessy directly that she should be the replacement nominee as she was the one who put Haleigh and Kaitlyn up and made him choose between the two. Ultimately, Brett uses the veto on himself and Scottie’s plea is ignored as Kaycee is picked as his replacement. Faysal explains this by saying that Scottie flip-flopped from wanting Haleigh out to trying to get Sam evicted, which was a “red flag” for him. Sam is simply confused as to how she went from Scottie’s helper to his target, telling the diary room that she’s “done.” As Brett, Angela, and Tyler tan in the backyard, Brett is convinced this will be the first unanimous vote of the season as they have the votes to get Scottie out. In the diary room, he goes over how The Hive/Foute/Bad News Bears have had two straight opportunities to take down Level Six and have ended up shooting themselves in the foot, He also says that Faysal’s their next target.

Fire in the kitchen! In a fitting metaphor for Faysal’s HoH reign, the oven goes up in flames until Sam comes with an extinguisher to put it out. Tyler and Angela meet with Fessleigh in the HoH room to go over the final four deal discussed in last night’s episode; Fessy says the “floaters” in the house are counting on them to go after each other, so by joining forces they’ll only be stronger. Angela tells the diary room there’s no way she’s leaving Level Six, but that if Haleigh wins HoH next week, this “alliance” may be how she and Tyler manage to stay safe. She tells Tyler the final four arrangement may be worth sticking with for a while because winning the next HoH would be useless with everyone targeting Sam for different reasons. Tyler, now in some sort of final two or final four deal with everyone left in the house except Scottie, says that it’s great to feel safe, but notes the plan could quickly backfire as he’ll have to go back on his word along the way. He tells the diary room that while his ideal final four is himself, Kaycee, Angela, and JC (poor Brett), he ideally wants to go to the finale with Kaycee. He’s certain he’ll win against her as opposed to JC, who lest we forget has won 0 competitions this season.

After a week of messiness, bad decisions, tears, flames, and zings, it’s finally time for the live eviction. Scottie, knowing he’s a goner, turns his speech into one big apology to the people he’s hurt. It’s on this note that he becomes the third evictee of the season by a vote of 6-0, the first unanimous vote of the season. In his exit interview with Julie Chen, he has explanations for just about every bizarre move he’s made this week. On the whole Sam/Haleigh drama, he says that his initial thinking was that Fessy would be so frustrated with Sam’s pitch that she would be put up next to him. Scottie believed his only chance to stay in the game was against her. When Julie asks why he didn’t fight harder to make the house believe that he, not Brett, was the vote to keep Rockstar last week, he says that he thought he’d be believed since Brett is a lying liar who lies and he didn’t feel he had to defend himself to Fessy since he was on his side. “That’s why I panicked, that’s why I acted a fool because none of that makes sense to me,” he says in his classic frantic style. Quizzed if his admission of feelings for Haleigh was the truth or just game, he waffles for a bit but ultimately says it’s all real. And for good measure, he calls Fessy a hypocrite for going after him for the vote to evict Swaggy C when he and Foute went back on their word to keep Steve, his first (and truest?) friend in the house. For someone who lied a good deal in the house, Scottie’s truthfulness was ultimately his downfall. When he needed his allies to save his back, the flipped votes and doublecrosses were simply too big to ignore. It’s a shame, but that’s Big Brother.

The time has come for the HoH competition, “Sweet Shot.” The houseguests will have to search through a ball pit for a piece of candy with a token inside; once that token is given to Faysal, they’ll have to grab a ball and roll it through a conveyor belt. The first houseguest to make a “perfect shot” will be the new HoH — but there’s a catch. If a houseguest doesn’t land the “perfect shot,” the ball will land below the belt in scored slots from 1-40. From there, they have to choose between keeping that score or going back to the pit to find another token for a second roll. If no one lands a perfect shot after an hour, the houseguest with the highest score will be the new HoH. We’ll have to wait until Sunday to find out how all that pans out, but the biggest news is that we’re gonna have a jury battle-back! Yep, after next week’s eviction, Scottie, Rockstar, Bayleigh, and the fourth member of the jury will square off for the chance get back in the game. Depending on who wins this battle-back, this will give Level Six some more opposition and quite possibly change the trajectory of this season once and for all. Is it next Thursday yet?

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